Penny Post #33: Hamster Rosie
Rest in peace.
Our first pet was named Rosie. If you read this post, you probably already knew that. Yet what you didn’t know is that long before we ever got our beloved golden retriever and named her Rosie, we had a hamster by the same name. If I remember correctly, hamster Rosie was a birthday gift for my older brother, yet of course, the entire family got involved. We shopped for a cage and toys for hamster Rosie and we set everything up on our kitchen counter. Although Rosie was technically not mine, I let everyone know that she loved me the most. She wasn’t allowed out of her cage so I would pull up a chair to the kitchen counter (I wasn’t tall enough), and open the ceiling hatch to pet her.
One time when I was petting her I pressed too hard and she bit me. After that I decided that the hamster was indeed my older brother’s and it didn’t matter how much hamster Rosie loved me because I hated her.
I think we had hamster Rosie for all of six months. One night, just a few short weeks in, hamster Rosie escaped.
Her cage was plastic and there was no way to climb out, so hamster Rosie (with those painfully sharp teeth) chewed her way out of her cage. One early morning, when my dad found a chewed-out cage and no hamster in sight, he found her hiding in our mudroom. I still have no idea how hamster Rosie made it from the tall kitchen counter - that I couldn’t reach myself - to our mudroom. Nor do I know how the hell my dad found her, caught her, and put her back in her cage. If the tiny scar on my hand was any indication, hamster Rosie did not suffer fools.
And we were fools. Because we put her back in that cage, duck taped where she chewed her exit, and believed it wouldn’t happen again.
Miraculously, it did. This time Rosie knew where to hide. I think it took a troop of all of us searching the entire house to find her. We eventually did (I don’t remember where) and bought a much more secure cage with chewing capacity intact.
A few weeks later, we woke one morning to find hamster Rosie on her back, mouth slightly ajar, dead. My guess is she tried to chew her way out of her new cage - failed - and decided “to live free or die” was her new motto.
We mourned hamster Rosie in a plastic bag and discarded her corpse a few short years before we celebrated the arrival of another Rosie, this one in dog form.
When I asked my mom if she had any pictures of hamster Rosie to accompany this memoriam:
Somehow we decided that our failed ownership of hamster Rosie was evidence that we were meant to own a dog. Somehow we decided to honor (or erase?) hamster Rosie by using her name to identify our newest pet who would come to replace hamster Rosie as our first true pet.
I rarely think of hamster Rosie, yet I awoke this morning shaken by a dream I had of her. It was as if her ghost bit my hand, forcing me to type this memorial (?) to remember her.
I still hate you, hamster Rosie. But here you go: you now have your own penny post.
Congratulations.
Until next time,
Kiera
Loved your memorial to Rosie probably because I love all animals and I think your dad does too. You must read my story about the two hamsters we had as a pet. In summer we would put the cage
out on our shady patio to get some fresh air. This was fine until one day in late summer. I was out playing tennis as I did several times a week and was always back home by 4.00 p.m. That day I was delayed for some reason and did not get home until 4.30. Alas the sun had crept over the patio and reached our cage with our pets , They died of the heat and I almost died of chagrin and grief. My poor son evermore has accused me of killing those pets. He was almost fully grown before he forgave me!